School WhatsApp groups never disappoint...

[SausageChipsBeansAndGravy]

I'll start...

Our rather overzealous PTA informally announced that if children didn't bring in a raffle prize donation, they'd have to wear school uniform on non-uniform day.

One mum decided to send her kids to school in full uniform in protest, announcing it to the WhatsApp group. The group was silent for a change, with people not knowing quite what to say.

I could see what she was trying to do, but it seemed a bit harsh to inflict it on her own kids, especially as everyone knew the school wasn't actually going to enforce the rule.

Do your WhatsApp groups have any stories?

I think they’re far more common in private schools especially once you get to secondary. The logistics for a lot of private secondaries are a nightmare and people often have multiple kids in multiple schools. Keeping up with Saturday matches, field trips, CCF, plays etc is a lot of admin! The parents tend to organise an end of year trip to somewhere like paintball or a theme park etc. It’s all done on the WhatsApp group.

But was them posting on the wrong what’sapp ‘accidental’? Probably someone just wanted to make you all aware that there’s a separate WhatsApp for the ‘cool’ (desperate) parents, just to keep you in your place….

I’m a teacher, Head of Y7, have been for ages. This year a mum came up to me at the welcome evening and said ‘Hello, I’m the class rep’, me ‘oh, erm, ok, I didn’t know there was such a thing’. She then proceeded to tell me that she’d be happy to pass on any important messages to the parents on the WhatsApp group and would be happy to discuss any issues from the parents side, and looked a bit put out when I explained that anything important would be emailed to parents in the normal way and if there are problems parents should contact the school directly. I think she thought she was somehow part of the the schools management structure in some official capacity and we’d be having regular meetings. It was so bizarre, they and their dc’s have carried on like they were in primary school for the rest of the year and the WhatsApp group is a constant pita with different parents ‘letting us know’ different things, and falling out with each other and moaning to us about each others children. It hasn’t happened before, hopefully a one off!

What a weird parent to use their child to make some sort of point that was totally pointless anyway.

Oh she’ll be the one moaning that communication and contact is not good enough and feels excluded from her child’s life and education. 😬.

DD is finishing y9 and I still haven’t met or communicated with her form tutor yet. There wasn’t ever any need to.

Why are you on the WhatsApp group?

Ah these are the best. Little kids are mysteries.

Ours is disappointingly civil. We have just finished year 11 and there’s still one screen shotting mum though, usually 2 mins after the school sends the email

I agree to an extent, ours has been quite active this week because a lot of the year have been on a DofE expedition and other trips, and there are often messages about Saturday rugby and other sports. However I’m sure most schools have similar trips and events. Maybe not so much Saturday sport.

I’m not!! But parents keep complaining or ‘just letting us know’ what other people or saying on it. Or using it to wind each other up into a massive hoo haa about minor issues. Or falling out with each other which then ripples out into friendship issues with their dcs. I’m sure they have good points too but we never hear about them.

Wow, all of that was left behind when my dcs started year 7. I had hardly any contact with the head of year. But well done for standing your ground with that mum.

Actually I remember someone on here a while ago saying this happened to them, getting their DD of about 5 ready for bath time and on removing one school dress they found another one underneath! The class had had PE that day and she had somehow got distracted while changing back and put an extra one on. Other child had had to go home in PE kit because the dress just seemed to have vanished! I think this story predated whatsapp so they had to go via the teacher

We seem to have competitive cluelessness on our one. “I’m so laid back and disorganised I never read a single email lol what am I like?”

On our's there's some weird race to immediately repeat the email contents on the group as quickly as possible to be the first one to share the information.

Mine is generally fine but can be socially awkward as one of the parents is also a teacher and was our class teacher for a year. She posted 'I'm here as a parent not a teacher so please treat me as such.. ' there was radio silence from the group all that year! Recently there was an issue with a teacher and how a situation was managed within the school and a lot of parents were upset. Every single ranty message finished with a 'of course I know this isn't a reflection on all the other wonderful teachers at the school..'. I'd say poor mother / teacher found the whole thing difficult..

We didn't have group WhatsApps in my day but it would have been very useful the day my boy came home with three shoes.

How hilarious. I’d have struggled to keep a straight face talking to her!

....or it's just some friends whose kids get along. I really, really doubt anyone thinks they're the cool parents.

Like it's some juicy gossip and they get kudos for being the one reporting it 🤣

We had a mum asking if it was a snow day. Apparently quicker than looking out of her own window to see there was no snow.

This. The PTA had no right to do this.

I like the screen shots. I get one million emails from school including entirely pointless ones that don't affect me, plus all the other activities send hundreds of emails. Stuff gets missed.

To be fair if its snowing in other areas the staff might not be able to get there. The school should inform people though not the WhatsApp group.

🤣

The mum that outed my daughter’s birthday party when we’d invited 7 out of 25 in her class. We’d kept it small and quiet so that nobody felt left out. We couldn’t afford more at the time. This particular girl was horrible to my DD at the time. I just thought the apple maybe doesn’t fall far from the tree in that instance

Perhaps we’re in the same group 😅

I have a mum like this. School issues correspondence and without fail, it’s posted on the group within about 20seconds.

Now her youngest is at school, she literally must sit with her phone in hand all day.